Statement from Microsoft About Response to Government Demand

[Apoptosis]

Statement from Microsoft About Response to Government Demands for Customer Data

In response to an article in the Guardian on July 11, Microsoft issued the following statement:

“We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues.

First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes. Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren’t valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate. To be clear, Microsoft does not provide any government with blanket or direct access to SkyDrive, Outlook.com, Skype or any Microsoft product.

Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That’s why we’ve argued for additional transparency that would help eve

[sbohdan]

I'm 100% positive, that Snowden would not risk his life and abandon a good paying job just to spread lies and rumours. Microsoft is lying period. Anyway: the information provided by Snowden is very much in line with everything else the United States government is/was doing all over the world. I'm really surprised why the majority of Americans can't see that they are being constantly lied to by their government, who sends thousands of young americans to die to "spread and defend democracy" and in fact it's all about the oil, precious metals, fresh water and simply more power for the few. Thousands of young people die and become disabled in wars thinking they are giving this sacrifice for their country, when in fact it's all about the greed of the few. I wonder what happens, when these people wake up and realize all this - there will be no mercy I suppose...

[sgkean]

Sad thing is, this isn't anything new. We all should have known this was going on, and continues to go on in almost ever industry. In the banking industry, there are data warehouse's that know EVERYTHING about your banking practices, and sell this information to other banks. At one time, if I had your SSN I could look up anything you have ever done that dealt with a bank, how often you made payments, was late, overdrawn, credit line, etc. It didn't matter what bank you were with or where you banked. This is all collected and sold for marketing type purposes. Anything you buy (with anything other than cash) goes into a database and gets sent around for data mining, and includes your personal information (name, ssn, etc).

Every piece of software you download or install is tracked in some form or another.

People are nieve if they think anything is private anymore...everything is collected, stored, indexed, and placed with metadata...

[KnightRid]

Sad thing is, this isn't anything new. We all should have known this was going on, and continues to go on in almost ever industry. In the banking industry, there are data warehouse's that know EVERYTHING about your banking practices, and sell this information to other banks. At one time, if I had your SSN I could look up anything you have ever done that dealt with a bank, how often you made payments, was late, overdrawn, credit line, etc. It didn't matter what bank you were with or where you banked. This is all collected and sold for marketing type purposes. Anything you buy (with anything other than cash) goes into a database and gets sent around for data mining, and includes your personal information (name, ssn, etc).

Every piece of software you download or install is tracked in some form or another.

People are nieve if they think anything is private anymore...everything is collected, stored, indexed, and placed with metadata...

Ditto

People scream about privacy yet turn around and get 50 credit cards, 30 email accounts, sign up for freebies all the time, etc etc. Do you really think this information stays with the selected company only? LOL if you do. There is no way to have complete privacy in this day and age unless you have tons of money, take it all in cash and move to your own private island.